Too Big To Fail – Especially People – The recent Penn State episode confirms that we are destined to be disappointed when we put people on a pedestal. It appears Joe Paterno was part of the problem. Let’s not forget all the good that Joe did but there are people today still saying he did nothing wrong. The facts of the report seem to say otherwise. But this is not about Joe.

This is about our tendency to place too much faith in people and to place them on a pedestal. When we do that there is only one way they can go and that is down. The press continues to have examples of this; Lance Armstrong (verdict still out), Baseball steroids (though it seems we are going to give these guys a pass on this), Marines urinating on corpses in a combat zone. In all cases am I surprised by the event? Not fully. Disappointed? Totally. I feel the same way about Penn State. If the Church can cover up sexual abuse then so can a college. Surprised? No. Disappointed. Yes.

Perhaps the only place to safely put that faith is in a higher power. I am not here to debate that but I know placing your faith in a person is a riskier prospect. We are all human, and flawed, and we will all stumble at some point.

Maybe I am becoming more of cynic but I do know there are fine people doing fine work across our nation, the world, and in your organizations. But they are human and they will make mistakes. No problem there. Coach them, work to improve as we all aspire to that higher level of living and performance.

The problem lies when the law is broken and nothing is done to correct the breach. This is particularly egregious when children are the victims.

When we accept people as human, as we all are, they never get on the pedestal and maybe we can avoid these instances in the future. But the minute we place on them a greatness that exceeds their humanity we are all in danger.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2012 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.